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Nov 28, 2022
If you love stories and love to write, it's not that hard to write one. With enough tries and growing your craft, you can write good ones. But not many will pen with the certain grace and candor that characterizes the great stories that last forever. Every great story is told by a sincere love and care for its characters and the place they have in their world. Of the eight mediums of storytelling, there is one that began it all - literature - and Izumi Mitsu, writing about books and their power to unite the world, chose to depict it through manga. This form
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however suited her vision and goals by a multitude of full-page spreads that, relative to total length, you may simply not see in other manga. At this point there have been too many incredibly beautiful panels I wanted to stare at, mesmerized by being in the imaginary library myself, only tugged along by what happens next, what our hero sees next in his amazing world. Far too often in this medium we have characters that fade into the limelight of archetypes that the standard high school anime friend group epitomizes. Shounen has given us the main trio. I find that classroom casts are superior for this and off the top of my mind, only Blue Period challenges Magus of the Library in terms of vibrancy, diversity, and individual personality where each and every character feels like a person, in the modern era. Only a few writers can make me feel that excitement to meeting a new character whom I know will be interesting and whom I know will feel real. At this point I think of Legend of the Galactic Heroes or War and Peace for ensemble casts that feel likewise tangible - but written in different times. Unlike those works, this little book is fit to be read by all; fit to be enjoyed by everyone regardless of color or gender or religious beliefs or any other characteristic. The only author I've read that presents an abiding love of reading as strongly, relative to form, would be Virginia Woolf. The muster with which Izumi tells her story, nods to certain tropes, can only be done by a writer who's that familiar with the landscape of story. The notes of destiny provided by her at points in the story can only be done by one who has a clear purpose. In terms of distinct influences, I detect One Piece, Otoyomegatari, a little bit of Hunter x Hunter, and possibly Blue Period. Not many anime or manga nowadays do true fantasy, a true other world where it seems that anything can happen. The isekai genre notoriously glosses over the barrier of creating a fictional language, which should be, properly speaking, the first thing you create. Because only then can the books and stories flow and inspire. Because in books - in stories generally - there is this incredible, beautiful power and it is one of two true magics in our world. The other would be the creation of it, the manifestation of art by a person and when you bring the two together into one, you have Magus of the Library.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Sep 17, 2022
This is the real treasure right here.
Once in a while, a "treasure" comes along in the stardust valley of trash repetition isekai, successive seasonals, and interesting new takes on the industry's style over substance meter that continues to ebb and flow ever since sliced bread became mechanized and bleeding.
Needless to say, the last time I felt this excited for a true battle shounen was my first time reading JJK when it had fewer than 50 chapters back in 2018; to stumble upon something so new, so wholly true to the form, and stealing all the best from its predecessors. We all saw how BIG it
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got with MAPPA doing its fine work. Stay healthy, MAPPAfolk. After adapting 139 you can finally get your wings.
But with heady October bringing us Blue Lock, Bleach, Mob Psycho, and Chainsaw Man, just to name four, someday Gachiakuta will be adapted. I could tell from almost the first panel of Jujutsu Kaisen that it was a legitimate series, one that must be adapted, and this is the same. Most Shounen Jump titles aren't, and while I'm also hoping for the Sakamoto Days official announcement (leaked only so far), this little piece of garbage will reify, deify, and perhaps apostate "what is trash."
For sometimes, trash can actually be good. Little Rudo shows us the way. In the New Generation of shounen protagonists before him, he has a driving force that keeps him going. And it's revenge. But as he gets to know the people around him, he makes similar realization to Yatora Yaguchi over in Afternoon, that he's not the only special one. While his secret power rings of the devil boy in WSJ, as a sort of cheat code to the system, unlike really what Asta's brings to the Clover Kingdom and beyond, it's more a simple acknowledgement of others, that's what makes this dark horse manga stand proud.
I'm only assigning this a 7 for now because it's <30 chapters, but in <10 chapters we have fight choreo that looks like Soul Eater and, in shounen battle manga, has few rivals in terms of speed, smoothness, and turns. The art as you'll find is rough, even shoddy; but trash isn't glittering, isn't gold, but each and every character is drawn with care. Each and every person matters, and you watch Rudo try to save a support member, who then finds motivation to try harder. We're still learning about the core mechanisms of this power, and the world only beckons forth to its innermost secrets. For unlike Made in Abyss which cares almost 99% about the Abyss only, here we clearly begin in the upper world, before descending below to that of the Styx - but they're just people too. And nobody knows how to get back up there. There's monsters running amok, and these guys take them down, but everyone with a cherished object doesn't have to be good. And here's what's truly extraordinary about this work.
Shounen for a long time has been about powers. Power-ups, tournament arcs, journeys of finding your inner chakra / reiatsu / Nen / cursed energy / what have you, and wielding it for good, and for your ideals. Here, the power has been extended outward. It's less about the human magical essence that everyone seems to have. It's much more about the human passion for those stuffed animals or cool sticks that we preen as staffs or warm, protective gloves - that with our care, become things of power. While it's not quite an analogy to a passion for making art per se, that too does reside in this manga, and thus Urana Kei writes and draws a shounen that isn't about power. It's about the passion we all have and how that makes us special. How it makes fights something fun and cool to behold and through all of this, Rudo overcomes his terrible, traumatic past of abandonment and losing his father to maybe save the world, or get his revenge on the upper beings, but most importantly, find a love for himself - a love of trash.
Read Gachiakuta. It's going to be big.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Apr 10, 2022
Filmmaking - or really, the fiction of moments - is everything here. After his previous works Fire Punch (2016), Chainsaw Man (2018), and Look Back (2021), we come here to his newly created one-shot 2022. Like his first major serialized work, nods to his love of Hollywood film, and overall the work is nicely set up so that a dilettante filmmaker finds catharsis in not only successfully making a film that gets at other people's problems, but in finding peace after death, and he does so, in film. For me, film - or really, the fictions of media - have been a problem I've struggled
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with as something that really keeps me going, but as something always tangential, besides my own creative work, which is more durable and continuous. Here, after an astonishingly touching piece of home media that ends in bombast, it is the whole work that ends so, and so Fujimoto questions us, as all fiction is a series of chosen moments, that enable us to remember. Maybe life can only be beautiful, bright, and pure with such remembrances, themselves cut and recut, which are after all our memories - we have the power to choose how we remember others. We have the power to create such stories which can be beautiful, affecting how our characters are remembered - for we create whole lives, but only show pieces of them. What a piece of work is character! We have the power likewise to look at our own lives through tinted lenses, and so while his dream of creating a true film may have come true, or not, with his latest work, Tatsuki Fujimoto shows us yet again with his mastery and art of precisely placed human beings, within the camera frame of a panel, that characters are meant to be remembered.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Oct 24, 2020
I am writing this review after finishing the manga which I read where the anime left off. It is one of the best decisions I have ever made and this five-day experience will stay with me for a long, long time. This manga, more than my family or my friends, might just be the thing to finally get me off my ass and be more responsible.
So I'm a fresh uni grad off one of the most elite universities in the States. I've been spending my quarantine after graduation loafing in my parents' house without a paying job and studying for a standardized test and not
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improving the score all that much. My parents, my siblings, my visions of a life living on my own all clung to me like weeds. But I still couldn't find a way to get up on my own two feet and just face it, that I've been a lazy ass, and sought out which anime to watch. Which manga to read. That'd give me that miracle.
Well, it did take a blow to the face and after finishing the Great Teacher Onizuka anime earlier in quarantine, I wanted to read the manga, but I was too lazy even for that. Not until three months later, facing a new low in prospect and outlook on life, I decided to get back to it. A manga with quality writing, that sense of photorealistic backgrounds, realistically drawn characters, a purpose. Berserk's Golden Age arc suffused me, but only gave me darkness. Almost went back to rereading Oyasumi Punpun... but didn't. GTO - GTO came to mind, and I pulled up the site, got reading.
I have now emerged from the videos, the jokes, and the roofs a changed man. How ironic, or rather how fitting, that a fictional character finally got to me. Like some of the students in Class Four, I had a parent I didn't particularly like. Like Onizuka, I was 22. I look at this man who fought and kicked his way through HS with a motorbike gang and was probably expelled, went to a fifth-rate university and look where that got him. I look at this man with my degree from a first-rate university and what am I doing? Pulling words out at almost 2 am. But this man proved that with his gold star credentials he could teach. And not algebra or physics or tests or whatever flawed education system (which yes, this manga criticizes immensely) he came to, but how to live. How to take responsibility for your own actions and not to blame others for where you are. How to talk to others and realize that you have people who care about you and might listen if you give it a chance. I might not have tried jumping off a roof to a mere test score, but seeing this man's smile and this man's determination to do it all for his students. Man, it got me. I'm like Yoshikawa, Murio, Urumi, Miyabi, Anko, the whole lotta 'em that fought to grips with Onizuka or tried to resist truth when avoiding their deepset problems in life, and when this man did his thing, ends up smiling. I can't help but smile now. Today's age may not be quite the more innocent times of the 90s with technology way more advanced than those mock phones they gave out but these problems, these life stories, these lashings out at a system that you try to blame. Onizuka shows you time and time again that jumping onto a Cresta ain't gonna cut it. And even if you're not in high school, he got to them older teachers too. As Sakurai said, he has a special power surrounding him. And try to resist life, but he'll be what a true "teacher" does - show you the way. He'll act like a kid because he is a kid. But he'll change the way you look at things. And you'll never find a greater teacher in all of Japan (anime or manga).
Onizuka, I'm now gonna read the chapters I only saw in the anime. I wish our time at Holy Forest could've gone on for longer. But I'm a college grad and have to get back to life.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Nov 14, 2019
MASSIVE SPOILERS AND LAST EPISODE DISCUSSION BELOW THIS IS INTENDED FOR THOSE WHO ARE WAITING FOR SEASON 3
Hachiman yearns for “something genuine”. Season 1 began with anime’s Holden Caulfield, friendless, who really only likes his sister, Komachi, before he meets -- Yahallo! Yui Yuigahama, and “Ice Queen” Yukino Yukinoshita who become his first friends. He comments often with a blunt, almost derisive tone upon the behavior of his fellow social animals and meets others. “Hikki” begins to emerge from his shell and isn’t alone anymore. Goodbye, alone.
Zoku blows the first season straight out of the water. Brain’s Base hands the colors to feel. who continue
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the story with a sunset-warm fervor, outbursts of animation, and new character designs which fill out the characters more. Closeup shots of an earnest face. Tears flowing as Yui indirectly confesses to Hachiman. His own pained expression of his desire for something genuine. You then wonder, what has he been doing all this time? Was friendship not genuine? Hello alone, again.
Yui’s proposal to keep the three together after her confession, risen out of the sociocultural motif of offering chocolates to your romantic interest, fails to prompt Yukino to do the same with hers. Both Yui and Yukino have feelings for Hachiman who, besides having shown embarrassment from both of them and Iroha, realizes, as they do in the final episode’s moments, that to confess would shatter their friendship as it is -- formed under the guise of doing service for others, merely an excuse to interact with others and come to the same place every day after school and be forced to interact. Yui, who for most of Zoku has acted her Yahallo self’s cheerful demeanor, is the one who in the last episode displays her truer self. She has been in love with Hachiman from the beginning. Yet she loves Yukinon -- I’m afraid to use the word “genuinely” -- and prizes the three’s platonic state dearly; yet she tells Hachiman, “I’ll beat Yukinon.” The three have long since achieved friendship with each other. Hachiman expresses his longing for understanding, a faculty he’d been wielding since the first episode, whether to please his own ideal of solitude or to attempt to save social tension and endangered bonds. He recognizes it as selfish, to understand another person, but to share that selfish desire with another person, to move beyond mere friendship which isn’t enough, is what he esteems. Or maybe that something doesn’t exist, but for Hachiman, to still struggle and writhe and suffer with others also on that path is what remains.
In the last episode, all three enact moments of self-sacrifice: doubly significant due to the individual’s weighing of romantic attraction and friendship and the still-growing high schooler discovering himself or herself. Yukinon displays strong depth of uncertainty when Yui holds her hand and, while so clearly reluctant, as she has always done vis-à-vis her older sister, is about to accede and let Yui take it (as she did with the penguins, although nothing happened there) when Hachiman -- the Lone Knight -- steps in, clenching his fist. Yui for the entirety of both seasons had many opportunities to confess, and while she does so here, she only does so so that her best friend whom she knows has feelings for Hachiman also, can also bring out her other bag of chocolates. Haruno had interrupted her earlier, so Yui gives Yukino this chance, which she still doesn’t take as she hasn’t found herself yet. Had both confessed, while that is a gesture of sacrifice on Yui’s part, Hachiman would’ve been put into a tenuous position. While she isn’t that important, Kaori Orimoto, the one and only girl Hachiman confessed to in middle school, in her acceptance of him and his humor opens up the possibility. Now of course Hachiman, whether or not he ever had the guts -- but that doesn’t matter, because Hachiman steps in when he must, sacrifices himself for others because according to his ideal he is already alone and it’s his own thing. He’s been sacrificing himself this entire time. He steps in and rebuts Yui’s proposal, averring that Yukino has to fix her own problems, which is an action self-contradictory as in doing so he just helped her once again, as he did earlier when Haruno called (providing the words). Before gravity takes over Yukino asks him to save him someday -- Kan, you’re already doing it, stop it! Stop making me cry and agonize over other characters… I’m really just crying over myself. It has to end. Season 3 will be the end of this modern Austen-esque tomfoolery in which everyone is pretending or lying to themselves. Yukino will probably be saved but will that come at Hachiman’s hand or her own getting up and defying her older sister? Can the three simply do curtain call, hand in hand, walking off into the sunset simply friends? Will Hachiman “get together” with one of them? Will that entail a tragedy? You and I both know that something has to change. Why do I know this? Because it’s fiction. We’re watching these individuals and think we understand, writing reviews from our high horse.
Unfortunately, there cannot be a “someday” for these characters. To be saved someday, to return to the amusement park someday; both are the undiscovered person’s means of postponing certainty, of infiltrating the present-day despair with a residue of hope. It’s weak self-appeasement and besides foreshadowing only assuages the not knowing in the present. Hiratsuka-sensei impresses upon Hachiman the need to act in the present time and as the brouhaha surrounding Hayato’s course choice indicates, their time together won’t last, whether they move up to different classes or graduation brings a much more distant separation. It’s almost as if it’s only the romantic thread that can cement connections at this junction, that friends will have it harder staying friends after the enforcement of time; Shizuka still isn’t married and look at her, she’s still teaching at a high school and comforting herself by providing advice to the younger ones. The single inherent flaw of fictional narrative is that it has to end. Within this end-defined superstructure are the means of narrative which include character, and for characters to acquire any significance in a primarily character-driven story they have to change, realize themselves, bow and leave satisfaction as the curtain descends. Kan will bring the third act and conclusion; no matter how much they continue to struggle together, it will have to reach breaking point, and Hachiman must leave his fans and shippers and critics with a pleasing happy end.
The second act isn’t only about these three, of course, as the show’s Best Girl (and my personal ship) takes the stage as well. Iroha Isshiki -- note how her last name culminates in I and not A -- is alone. Note her despondent back as she walks back from the meeting without Hachiman. She needs him to hold her bag, which while not containing chocolates puts her in a position of dependency on him. She is the Truest Pretender who does what she does to maintain her image, greeting Hachiman “senpai” and rejecting him for apparently hitting on her over and over again in her made-up cute voice. If you’re still unsure, listen to Uraraka. As Hachiman himself notes, she “uses” him to actually accomplish things with the other student council run by Hand-Waver BS-Spouter. With Hachiman, she can be not herself and also herself, as glimpsed too briefly when she whispers into his ear on the train, “You’d better take responsibility.” She’s only gotten this far with his (sneaky) help and certainly feels some measure of debt, as well as the certain sense of her own growing feelings for him as he may be the only one who can understand the true Iroha. Note how in episode 4 she almost immediately goes to him, surprising Tobe with her speed. There are several ship moments, another being her surprise at Hachiman’s remembering her birthday (not to mention her coming to the Service Club more than once), and with Season 3’s teaser I -- I -- I ship. Yes, so far Yukino is the likeliest vessel but there’s something very appealing about Irohas’s pixie-like haircut, her voice which is just slathered with fakeness, her commitment to her propped-up image. WAIT WHAT IF IROHA X HACHIMAN ALLOWS HIM TO CONTINUE BEING FRIENDS WITH YUKINO AND YUI now see, I’m being selfish here, imposing my own desires onto the narrative without understanding… See what I did there! This is serious, you can’t just dismiss Yukino and Yui’s love. But then again, more than one person will be sad at the end no matter what, right?
And that’s how Oregairu Zoku is meta-commentary on the audience’s selfish privilege to ship characters.
But don’t worry, Rumi Tsurumi is also an “I” character who is alone. In some ways she is a preconfigured Hachiman-type, remarkably aware for her age and while she doesn’t really get friends in this season, she allows Hachiman to cut out decorations next to her. He’s drawn to the alone and Rumi, Iroha, and the single teacher illustrate this -- Hachiman’s statement that he would probably have fallen madly in love with her were he born ten years earlier. Her being Shizuka.
Pretend jokes besides, we cannot forget my boy Hayato Hayama and Best Sister Komachi. They both score points and both understand Hachiman’s modus operandi, H. H. #2 being a quasi-”rival” in the endeavor to understand others (while recognizing that H. H. #1 is superior, which forms his dislike for him) and Komachi having lived with him all her life. Her moments with him are touching and far more pure than, cough. Hayato is the romantic interest for several characters and is popular as the star athlete and all-around nice guy but in Zoku he sobers up and doesn’t tell a soul about what he’s doing next year, not wanting to be the Hayato everyone expected him to be. It’s strongly implied that he has feelings for Yukino, whom he’s known the longest out of the bunch in addition to a yet undisclosed event that happened in the past, which will complicate things even further in Kan when he shows his truer self to more than just Hachiman. If Kan takes place in their third year, then Komachi will enter the picture too!
I’ve written a lot, Hachiman definitely wouldn’t have been able to write this much, and my tears have long dried. I’ll conclude by stating firmly that Oregairu Zoku is the best high school anime I have seen to date, as far as high school anime are concerned and their shared archetypes and what they, in general, attempt to achieve. It is phenomenally written and heart-wrenchingly delicate and understands people better than Hachiman himself.
Waiting for Kan with bated breath.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Feb 3, 2019
A masterpiece. That’s the first thing I’ll say about this anime. Monster. The ability to characterize somebody you’ll only see for a couple of episodes in a single episode, even the bare rigor of their expression that is a product of the extraordinarily diverse palette of character designs. Well done, Urasawa. When this person reacts to the news of something tragic and their eyes shift, the surface moves, arms fall. In that one moment we get more development, “fleshing out” (pun intended), than many isekai protagonists receive in a cour. It feels real. Visceral. Your parents did not die, but someone else’s parents did, and
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you feel the pain. The eviscerating sorrow that spreads forth like the plangent cry of the Sirens, through the rest of the show. Deaths accumulate like tainted snow called forth by the best villain the medium has to offer. His name I will not reveal. The monster within must be witnessed with little introduction. Know true terror. For a show like Monster, I highly recommend -- and hope -- that you do not and did not read the plot blurb provided by this very database. Watch not just one but two episodes to see where this begins. Urasawa does what we often refer to as “pacing” RIGHT. Events unfold in a series of seemingly unrelated mini-arcs, each concerning a different set of characters, that only upon reflection and realization are AS ONE -- or at least one arc of blood spilt by [name]. The manner in which Monster turns its probing eye upon character after character, distinct human being after human being, is sharply reminiscent of Hugo in Les Misérables. There is a “main character” but the story looks at society, at the human entity, as a whole in its unforgiving turnings. You are not inculpable. Projection. Vision. Movement forward towards the inescapable, monolithic end. “What is the end?”
For a long time while watching Monster, not yet really aware of just how amazing it was, I merely thought it was a well-made anime, solid story, interesting villain. At some point I noticed. The direction. The camera isn’t as vivacious as the one behind the infamous potato chip scene. It’s not as intimate and revealing as the one that makes Yakusoku no Neverland so riveting. It’s not as vicarious as the one that birthed the new Gridman. But it moves in its own, precise gait that illuminates the raising of faces, the unknown behind the door, certain disparate parts of the character matrix that in certain arrangements show, tell, illuminate. As more and more hints and shadows at the fore and revelations were dropped, the more I connected events to events and considered, [name]: the monster: he who shall not be named stands there, silent, until his -- how do I even describe it? The voice acting on him is brilliant. I won’t say more, because you have to hear it yourself, and for that to happen you have to watch Monster. Please do. One of the handful of anime I can, without a doubt, use the word “masterpiece” to describe.
The soundtrack is haunting. As the series is itself, besides the many dark and tragic and sorrowful moments there are notes of hope, respites of a temporary happiness. “angel hand” is one of my favorites. The opening theme manages to capture basically the entire show in 90 seconds (in terms of the major arcs/events) and the two ending themes are lilting melodies of anticipation. Who is the monster? Can true, unadulterated evil exist? Or even more relevant, the potential to be wicked in all of us. Humans are vessels for change. We choose to be good, or we lapse into darkness.
The visuals are no ufotable shadows and spades but you realize, you must, that the gentle canvas employed by Madhouse here suits the atmosphere and characters perfectly. The angered face of Character T as he points the gun. The supercilious face that conceals an unrelenting misery of Character E. The face of Character J that says nothing and says everything, a deep, unabiding recognition of the truth. Pay attention as the deaths accrue. The monster is real, and he exists.
The characters as I already mentioned are well manifested but they are also superbly written, with the main characters possessing strong arcs. I at least grew to care for Character N. This is one of those rare shows that present human beings as human beings which most anime nowadays fail to do, let alone even try to do. The incredible cast of Monster of whom really nobody is neglected speak like real humans. Their facial expressions are mutable and no two characters look alike. The questions presented are significant, they involve these characters legitimately, they involve you and me, they are critically important facets of human nature and what makes one “good” or “evil”. Morality. They are of who you are, who you really are, and why you are who you are. Identity. Name. Open your eyes and see the devil come down to earth.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Aug 25, 2018
A treatise on strength and its two founts, courage and power.
A person's resolve to shatter the millstone of fate.
A willingness to depict different aspects of power in a manner both directed and artistic.
A recognition of solitude swathed in sorrow, held upright by words.
A panache unbroken by the plethora of distinctive character designs and fighting abilities.
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A stark portrayal of the soul within the blade.
My #1 favorite manga as of writing this review. Give me another shounen manga with the same level of art and attention to how power is conceived... BLEACH is great, it really is. Don't view it as just another trope-infested shounen rife with flat characters restricted to one-liners, repetitive fights, lots and lots of fights with little constructive dialogue, fights that follow the same formula with variations, fights that end as expected. If you can look past all that, change your perspective and realize that Bleach is something different -- an exploration of sorts, Tite Kubo's means of showing us Humans the possibilities and potential residing within life energy, reiatsu in this case, using characters as mere vehicles or even vessels that carry such power to varying degrees and combinations. Ichigo is the centerpiece, but still with the many character dynamics going on it's all part of a spiraling wheel of Fate, or millstone as Kubo deemed it. The anime is best viewed, I think, after the manga such that you can enjoy it as a moving, sound-backed representation of the source.
But even then, the anime is a poor manifestation for the vision Kubo strove for with mere black and white is enough. Even with just those two shades, there is a certain ineffable flavor or quality that resonates within the created shadows and parameters of light. The general human design is also quite clear-cut in a manner not so cut out by Kishimoto, Togashi, or even Oda. What I like to call "focus" or the mangaka's ability to present certain parts of characters or flickers of movement with truncated panels, the counterpart to anime and films' directors, is a heavy component of what makes Bleach a strong manga. It utilizes the capabilities of the medium and can't really be bettered by any other. To illustrate just look at Hunter x Hunter, which was floored by the 2011 anime adaptation, or Boku no Hero Academia, whose anime literally looks like the manga colored and given movement and sound.
You could gripe about the lackluster character development and progression. Call out the sheer prevalence of fighting. Criticize the imperfect writing. Label Bleach as just a mainstream shounen that doesn't deserve anything more than what its genre demands.
But let me tell you this. Align yourself with the artist's mission, the intent behind the making, and perhaps you can see more clearly. Break free of the limits placed on you by popular perception. If you haven't seen the blade unsheathed, keep it that way. If Naruto is a story about the meaning of Hokage -- if One Piece is a story of pure adventure -- Bleach is a story of the strength held in a blade and its origins. Watch Ichigo get back up, again and again, witness his courage, and ponder the process of black being bleached to white.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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May 11, 2018
As someone who has seen Fate/Zero, Fate/stay night, and Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works and is currently rewatching all three of them, I can say firmly that the first installment, PRESAGE FLOWER, of the third and final route of Fate, HEAVEN’S FEEL, is awesome. Of the three routes it is undeniably the darkest, most complex, most lore-intensive. Servants die, suddenly. Yuki Kajiura delivers yet again with an OST that isn’t quite as symphonically heavy as Fate/Zero but is certainly apt in its own right, with light notes sporadically scattered throughout with sweeping, somber orchestrals accompanied by the identifiable haunting vocals. And, of course, ufotable. I
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honestly didn’t expect anything better than what they did with UBW, but they surpassed even that standard (which had surpassed Fate/Zero) -- right from the first scene at the archery dojo, the presentation of chiaroscuro on a starkly sunny day laid behind the calm Shirou knocking, aiming, and releasing an arrow -- like, Holy Mothers of Gods, I was fanboying for the visuals, without a doubt the best I’ve seen yet from ufotable and perhaps even the best I’ve seen in any anime film (in close contention with Kotonoha no Niwa).
The first route, Fate, is distinguished by the focus on Saber and her budding romance with Shirou. The second route, Unlimited Blade Works, focuses on Rin but also on Shirou’s ideals as challenged by Archer. The third route, Heaven’s Feel, focuses on Sakura who should certainly be interesting, not just for the romance with Shirou but also for the role she will play in the Holy Grail War. I guess I was a bit discomfited (or drawn to) her constantly calling Shirou “senpai” but whatever.
Oh, and the fights. Dude. Bruh. My boi. There are some INSANE fights in this film. ufotable exceeded my expectations based on what we’ve seen in UBW -- the camera work, dramatic overplay of Servant tensions (LANCER), that oh so holy light we’ve seen so often from ufotable, whether it comes from Caster’s Magecraft or Lancer’s Gae Bolg or other Noble Phantasms. More like ufotable eyegasms, I mean these fights are EPIC.
Heaven’s Feel is one of those rare anime titles that you’ll want to see again immediately after finishing, or even as you watch you’ll want to rewatch certain scenes, due to the sheer god-tier quality of its visuals and animation. I started rewatching it just before writing this reaction and got 5 minutes in before stopping myself -- I saw it for the first time yesterday and was, as you can tell, blown away. Like honestly the plot is not what’s important, most of it so far is already known from the first two routes anyway, it’s the production values that make Presage Flower a standout and a must-watch for any fans of Fate. Kind of like how for certain characters like C.C. their personality is irrelevant, you’re just staring at them on screen and paying deep attention to whatever words come out of their mouth. Lelouch, you lucky bastard.
My Composite Score: 87
Final Evaluation: “Visually, a heavenly feeling”
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Apr 17, 2018
When it comes down to it, all of narrative-based media can be summed up by one unifying arc: the search for mankind’s identity. What it means to be human as opposed to the animal or AI or god. Whether our short lives can have meaning in this incomprehensibly vast universe. Whether or not the reality we experience with the senses is verifiably real.
Ghost in the Shell (GitS) examines this question thoroughly in its 82 minutes. By seeing the Major’s questioning of her existence, being a fully prosthetic human, we can ask ourselves the same question. What really makes us different from humanoid robots that can
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think for themselves? What makes us more alive?
In terms of production, GitS excelled, especially for being released in 1995. The level of detail on the urban setting, human faces, grey rain descending, the Major’s eyes, the scene in which the cybernetic body becomes a human. It may not be as crystal clear as Makoto Shinkai, but for some reason it felt to me more real. Watching Kimi no Na wa., for instance, felt real, but only real within a clearly anime world. Watching GitS somehow felt like a glimpse of a 2029 Japan. Of course for even more “real” visuals you can see the 2017 live-action adaptation, but don’t. Even just from clips you can tell that the 2017 version, while being aesthetically appealing enough, is just that, while sacrificing the philosophical depth of the original.
And I can’t not mention the great Kenji Kawai (Fate/stay night, Maison Ikkoku). Rather than go for the symphonically majestic like Sawano (AoT), Senju (FMAB), or Nakagawa (Code Geass), etc., he utilizes instruments sparsely, allowing for the spaces between notes to fill void with depth, expand nothingness into something. His track “Puppetmaster” with its sporadic drums and what sounds like tapping on metal, his “Making of Cyborg” with an almost tribal mantra to open the film, “Nightstalker” with its soft guitar atop synths -- apt. In questioning her existence, trying to validate that gap in self-awareness, Major plays proxy for the greater question for mankind, and Kawai’s OST develops that question very well.
I’m beginning to acknowledge a view Hayao Miyazaki expressed: that modern anime has forgotten how to draw humans realistically. I recognize that, being a visual medium and culturally endemic to Japan, anime carries a certain stylistic spirit; but while being artistic in its own right, there is still a loss of realism and thus ability to convey itself to the audience. We watch anime for the escapism. Some of us more than others certainly, but we do it for the experience of living in another world, albeit vicariously through the perspectives of its characters. Most of today’s anime caters to that phenomenon excellently; however, you can’t really get the feeling that you can actually live in that world. Look at the Fate series. It’d be out of this world, literally, to be there in person and witness the Holy Grail War with insanely powerful heroes of past and future. But try as I might, I can’t picture myself standing there alongside Shirou and Rin. Why? Because no matter how lucidly ufotable draws its backgrounds and characters, it only feels all the more uniquely anime and two-dimensional, and consequently all the more out of reach. Compared to titles of the modern zeitgeist, GitS and other “classical” anime like Cowboy Bebop and Eva provide truer escapism then, because they feel more real and identifiably human.
But I digress. My point is, when watching older anime with their different animation styles -- that look distinctly more human-drawn than computer-animated -- there is a lingering, almost surreal sense of closeness between viewer and screen. The descending shots of towering urban complexes, the almost eerie absence of music at times that forces you to only pay closer attention to the visualization, the sober grey overtones imbuing the entire film with a conscious sense of distance. Of alienation from the body, of distortion of the union between it and mind, of the realization and awareness of the ghost in the shell. GitS is perfect for having been produced in 1995; redoing it today with a more refined air would taint that cyberpunk atmosphere, distill it, remove that sensation of consciousness.
As such, what we receive as “worldbuilding” in GitS does not come ready explained. We begin in medias res and the technological lingo and mechanics of society advanced as it is are rarely elaborated. This is not a bad thing, but rather, yet another means of furthering the escapism, the conspicuous sense of distance and closeness between us as the audience and the world as the anime. Instead of seeing a story animated to the screen that requires explanation, we see an excerpt from another universe, a parallel and future reality that mirrors our own inner universe of thoughts and memories and desires.
Along the same thread we receive scant characterization of Major’s fellow agents, as GitS is not about its characters so much as it is about the questions its societal workings poses, which are conveyed to us via the Major, who is but a vehicle for that purpose. As she begins to question who she is and whether she is truly human, we, too, may begin to doubt our existence, and whether our lives are significant above and beyond a convenient arrangement of particles.
Ghost in the Shell is a rigorous exploration of the human being’s identity, superbly executing a cyberpunk atmosphere without losing the philosophical intensity.
Score: 88
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Mar 29, 2018
What do you get when you combine the religious mythology of Paradise Lost with the fanservice of ecchi anime?
High School DxD.
Wait -- da fuq? How can a masterpiece like Paradise Lost (praise John Milton) be spoken in the same breath as Issei’s Fan Club and Friends? What the hell (pun intended) are you implying? Can an ecchi anime that features nude pics of its main characters midway through each episode even be good?
Well. As flagrant as its shots of boobs, panties, butts, and what have you may be, for an ecchi it is surprisingly good. In fact, if the purpose of ecchi is precisely to
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appeal to the target audience that would even watch this kind of stuff, then DxD is superb, for the ecchi direction caters exactly to that. We get generous, copious, amounts of NSFW images with that soft, lustrous tint you see surrounding girls’ nipples and defining girls’ lips. Issei blushes profusely and often, the lucky bastard, and even wakes up to several naked girls all vying for his attention. What’s more, the very impetus behind Issei’s powerups that in most shounen would be nakama power is, yes indeed, lust. Not to discount the nakama power that does exist, very strong actually, but the fear of seeing Rias’s boobs halved in size being enough to spur him on? Brilliant.
Moreover, DxD has plot, and by plot I don’t mean “plot” but actual plot, the series of events providing a vehicle for character change, world exploration, etc. I’m reading Paradise Lost for my Milton class this semester and I’m legitimately getting the same vibes with DxD -- that indescribable feeling of awe in the face of untouchable, higher beings. The conflict of DxD over its three seasons concerns three primary groups, namely the divisions of God’s angels after the war in Heaven into the devils, fallen angels, and loyal angels. In the present day, much much after that war, these big names still exist and when they interact with the human (-ish) main characters… it’s crazy. Not to mention the notable voice actors chosen for certain roles which only accentuates the coolness. I mean like there’s this one scene where the leaders of each group are sitting at a table, so much power gathered in one place. Hell yeah.
The aforementioned nakama power arises vis-à-vis the Occult Research Club. Rias treats her chess pieces as family, and as the story progresses we get solid development and backstory for each one. The tantalizingly unconsummated romance between Issei and Rias always hangs in the background (poor Rias) with Issei continuing to call her President akin to Godai’s calling Kyoko Manager in Maison Ikkoku. As the Club tackles each battle, the members grow closer, and by the third season (BorN) it is genuinely precious to behold. As for Issei’s harem (who to choose?), well, his dream of becoming the Harem King is essentially realized. But more than being an all lovey-dovey harem, DxD highlights the strong bonds between Issei and his fellow club members; their anguish at seeing a nakama in danger and pain is very akin to the anguish we see in the Straw Hats for another of their crew.
In terms of music, if you like sweeping orchestrals and frolicking simple tunes, then you’re bound to enjoy the OST of DxD. Its sonorous qualities match the grand scale of the events, the seriously celestial force of individuals clashing, the power to emanate from an outstretched hand. If only the fights were better animated, but then again we can’t expect anything comparable to ufotable’s work in Unlimited Blade Works.
The OPs and EDs? The OPs present their corresponding arc events/characters as necessary, and the EDs are as mediocre as can be for an ecchi (as many nude shots as possible). I didn’t really care for the ED music but the OPs I really liked, definitely more serious than what I’d expect from an ecchi (frilly high-pitched female vocals).
I enjoyed this best on Crunchyroll (good animation). When I tried it on other sites (much worse animation) it was hard to watch. The only thing worse than plenteous oppai is badly visualized plenteous oppai. The fights were, as I noted, just OK, but seeing Issei boost and change his mecha-dragonesque appearance multiple times was pretty slick (plus having the voice of Madao/Hasegawa from Gintama pumping up the MC was quite interesting). Being a fan of fantasy and mythos, seeing the plethora of big names like Azazel and Michael was awesome, and seeing Rias fully bare in the flesh -- and caressing Issei -- and faintly coloring at the thought of Issei -- and caring for her subordinates so dearly -- and her oppai -- and her tenderly rounded derrière -- and her vivid scarlet hair -- and I digress. In terms of the bod, Rias Gremory is my #1 girl, matched only by perhaps Senjougahara Hitagi from the Monogatari universe. Issei you lucky, fortunate man.
Could DxD have not been an ecchi? Hmm. Not really. It would change the story drastically because the ecchi and plot are so intricately intertwined. DxD is good ecchi, and I say “good” in the sense that the fanservice and sensuous elements are made endemic to the plot and MC’s growth rather than being mere add-ons. Take Highschool of the Dead for example, remove the ecchi and you could have 90+% of the story intact; that’s superfluous ecchi. Heck, any show can be made ecchi simply by having the girls dress more scantily and have plenty of clothes being ripped apart, etc. And to taint the arduous fervor of DxD by removing ecchi from its name would be a blasphemy. By the gods and demons and dragons above and below, I need more oppai, more Rias, and hopefully a suitably tender moment between her and Issei to round out the show. I look forward to High School DxD Hero.
Score: 69
Review written for seasons 1-3 (DxD, New, BorN).
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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